opalmatrix | Dear Yuletide Author

Thank you very much for writing me a Yuletide Story. My biggest request is no tragedies, no darkness unless followed by light. I have a rough time emotionally when the days are short.

Have some optional details about what I like and don't like in a story, followed by my musings on what I like about my requested fandoms and what I might like in a story.

Preferences

I Don't Like:

Sickly-sweet, coy, cutesy romantic stuff (anything in the "tee-hee-hee, is he looking at me?" category is definitely out)
Extensive use of epithets, or epithets that don't match the character POV (no one should think of his or her long-time lover as "the green-eyed man," for example): these will throw me right out of a story
Characters acting out of character, especially if the purpose is to force them into a relationship (doubly bad if that relationship is romantic or sexual)
By-the-numbers, every-action-described sex (a/k/a Ikea Erotica - link goes to TVTropes). Note that actual sex is fine (I love me some sexy stories) — just don't like it when the descriptions turn into a set of exact stage directions.
Mpreg, rape, forced sex (including sex pollen and fuck-or-die), hatesex. Dubcon is OK, especially the sort when the reluctant partner really wants the other person but is just not quite feeling ready yet or doesn't think se wants it in this particular way but gets off on it anyway.
Humiliation or betrayal (without a damn good plot reason) of a character by a friend or lover
A/B/O and related kinks/tropes, incest (unless canon), scat/watersports/emetophilia, tentacles, non-human genitalia.

I Like:

Strong characterization (including character-appropriate dialog: no earthy, uneducated characters using $100 words)
Positive emotional payoffs that are well-earned
Passions that are strong without being mushy/fluffy
Moments of realization — satori
Friendships - although I am a romantic person, not every relationship must be romantic (I do like the trope of friends becoming lovers, however)
Wry and even dark humor in the course of a more serious story
And I like any of the following "cool bits":
- hurt-comfort
- being cozy indoors when it's rainy or snowing
- whispered admissions of love or forgiveness
- brushing long hair or riffling fingers through short hair
- romantic partners who are both competent
- someone gradually waking and smiling when they realize their beloved is there
- a stronger partner submitting willingly to the desires of a weaker one
- family-of-choice, nakama, or True Companions
- cynics with secretly soft hearts
- impulsive acts of valor (especially on behalf of the weak or an underdog)
- In-jokes among family members or close friends
- shopping or planning scenes, where people are working together to pick things out
- food descriptions: "food porn"
- an autumn leaf or item of clothing as the only bit of color in a bleak landscape

I'm quite content with both straight and gay relationships. I do tend to ship the canon relationships, unless it's a character who has had no clear relationships shown in the story. I'm not comfortable with sexual relationships shown in children under the age of, say, 14 or so, and even then it's better in context (teens with other teens or in a societal setting where girls expect to marry by 16-18 anyway).

The Fandoms

Alliance-Union - C. J. Cherryh

I'm a huge CJC fan, and Alliance-Union is my favorite of her settings. Hellburner is my very favorite book in this setting.

I identify hugely with Graff, mainly in the way he takes responsibility for his people, even when it puts him the hot seat, and stays loyal even when he realizes he can no longer trust his own superiors. I also wonder why he's no longer with the Gloriana, the merchant ship of his birth. CJC has Signy thinking that she spends the night with Graff or Di (or others) when she takes the fancy: this could be actual polyamory, if that's one of your things, rather than an open relationship. I also appreciate his relationship with the Hellburner team: he was there from their beginnings as a ridership crew, and as of the release of the ebook version, Word of God is that they end up on Norway (in CJC's afterword), as Graff does (canon, from Downbelow Station)

Dek and Ben have a very special, dysfunctional relationship. To some extent, Dek is Ben's Morality Pet, and Ben is Dek's (canon) Sanity Anchor. I don't ship them, but if that's your preference, go for it, as long as this doesn't leave Meg and Sal out in the cold or fridged): I love them too, and nominations just didn't work out this year. I love the close found-family relationship these four have, and the unsentimental ways they express it, snark and all.

Bet isn't right in the same storyline as the others, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't end up interacting: Norway comes to the rescue at the end of Rimrunners, after all. Also, it's canon that Mallory likes to use merchanters, marginers, and rimrunners in her operations against the Mazianni. If you can't make er a major part of the story, that's OK: it would be fun to have her in a walk-on cameo, "blink and you'll miss her." I love that even given her loveless upbringing and hard-baked, violent adulthood, she's still attracted to vulnerability (NG), to kindness and fairness (Bernie), to geniality and generosity (Musa). Maybe she does some sort of job for Norway and ends up on a bar crawl with the Hellburner crew. Or paint the scene after the end of Rimrunners: maybe Bet accompanies some of the Loki crew aboard Norway for medical treatment.

Or maybe everyone just ends up in a hell of a New Year's party aboard ship or on shore leave. Or Ben finally gets to set foot on a planet (probably Pell, rather than Earth, thing being as they are).

Chanur Series - C. J. Cherryh

This is my second-favorite Cherryh series. I love Py especially, the practical merchant captain who ends up (to her horror) influencing the fate of the universe. The relationship she develops with Jik (Keia), who is not even of her species, is something very special: "I love you like my sister," she tells him, and "Same," he says.

Jik realizes the importance of their role from the start: he is an experienced hunter captain, empowered to act on his own, far distant from his Personage. Cherryh gives us some of his POV at the start of Chanur's Homecoming, and I loved it and wanted more.

Haral Araun is canny, wise, more than capable, but rough-hewn and will never achieve command. But that's fine with her: she knows what she's worth. It would be great to see events (canon or otherwise) from her viewpoint. We get some flavor of what this would look like when Py is off the ship and Haral is talking things through with Hifly. Haral is far from simple in her understanding of what's going on.

And then there's Khym, who worships the ground Py walks on, who loves science and nature, who basically came back from the dead (from a Hani societal point of view) and became an effective member of the Pride's crew, rarely to set foot on Anuurn again. Seeing inside his head would also be great.

So: a side story, or a future story. A plotty caper would be wonderful, if that's your thing: these guys having to depend on each other, use each other "like we want to be use," to quote Jik when he was plotting with Py. Or a quieter scene, at the end of some adventure, enjoying each other's company. Or Py and Khym together, or Haral's take on life as they live it.

Chronicles of Tornor - Elizabeth Lynn

This book is a tremendous comfort read for me, up until the point where Sorren goes off on her own. At that point, it's just another story for me. I like Sorren well enough, and she's a huge part of the lives of the other three women. But they are the characters that attract me to this story.

Arre is in so many ways all that a local ruler should be. I love her satisfaction in keeping order, her lack of care for her appearance on a day-to-day basis but appreciation of dressing up for a special occasion, her occasional childish impulses (to eat sweets, to run rings around someone in conversation). I can sympathize with her frustration with her brother, her concerns with the L'hel's plotting, and her nostalgia for her relationship with Paxe.

Paxe reminds me in some ways of Catlin in Cherryh's Cyteen and Graff in Hellburner. She is the good soldier, and duplicity and subterfuge are uncomfortable for her. In Lynn's egalitarian and mostly peaceful world, she can also be a parent and a lover. I love how her friendships with various others around the city are depicted. I am somewhat disturbed about her physical relationship with Sorren, who is so much younger and is in a legally subservient position (although Sorren's mistress is Arre, not Paxe), even though I understand that the sexual ethics of Lynn's Arun are not ours.

We never get Marti's viewpoint, but I am delighted with her ease with her old age, and even her own death in the not-too-distant future: "I intend to be remembered ... I can hear them now: 'The old lady wouldn't do that, and she wouldn't let you do that!'" I enjoy what we see of her life, where she is still very much in charge of her own household and her district of the city, a lover of books and beauty (her garden, Arre's attractively arranged study, Sorren in a nice outfit), a student of humanity. She is the wise crone I would hope to become.

And Sorren is ... Sorren, the Northern Girl, sensual in a healthy way, painfully naive still about much of the world. For me, she's mainly a catalyst for the actions of the other three.

Give me a story about these three grown women, with as much of the one girl as is needed. Arre's first year of ruling in her mother's stead, with Paxe's support and Marti's advice? Paxe's first encounters with Sorren, and how that relationship developed? The bittersweet ending of Paxe and Arre's relationship, which Paxe describes in such dispassionate terms (to Sorren's frustration)? Marti's viewpoint on the canon events? Arre finally taking that trip upriver to see Tarn Ryth, and Paxe and Marti handling something that happens in her absence? Or something else that you want to write about these wonderful characters?

(Perhaps you could even answer the question of why Arre never taught Sorren to read, nor had her taught.)

The People - Zenna Henderson

I'd most like to see the People in a more modern era, any time from the 1970s (my teen/colleges years) to the present. Wordbuilding in terms of how the People deal with the ever-increasing intrusiveness of the modern technological world would be appreciated. The canon shows us that some People are developing tech-related skills: what would they do with the Internet?

I'd love seeing the descendants of the characters we know and love. I'd also like seeing the People's interactions and magic with a more diverse cast. We saw Dita interact with Latinx folks: Esperanza in Dita's classroom, Esperanza's alcoholic uncle at Dita's boarding house, but how about African American characters, LGBTQ characters, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist characters: the full panoply of the U.S. at its most diverse. Of course, this would have to be sensitively done, and there are other possibilities if those I've listed make you uneasy: runaway kids of all types, small towns left near-abandoned by factory closures, people addicted to drugs, alienated teens searching for a purpose in life, jaded success stories wondering "Is this all there is?"

And that brings up another issue: the ethics of the People's powers in the face of things like the AIDS epidemic.

If you want something more canon-close and less fraught, I'd love to see Bethie POV: how she meets her husband, her pregnancy and delivery of Shadow and her brother (introduced in "Shadow on the Moon"), and so on. Or more about Dita exploring her powers with the People, and Dr. Curtis' experiments with his willing People subjects.

Wild Adapter

I love Tokito's nearly pure id (food, videogames, and Kubota!), and how despite his amnesia and messed-up hand, he's actually the less broken of the two. Kubota's nihilism makes you forget how young he really is. What happens after they decide not to drown at the end of vol. 6 - literally, the process of getting back to the apartment, getting clean and warm? Or Uncle Kasai decides they need to get out of town, and they have to deal with another environment, an onsen or a country inn or something. Or Tokito's first time outside after coming to live with Kubo (it's clear that at first, Kubo keeps him indoors)? Or they get caught up in a New Year's festival in Yokohama, during the winter when Shouta is living next door, and end up participating, in their own way. Or maybe just some intimate time, where they finally get physical: maybe Tokito addresses his mixed-up feelings about Kubota and Anna. Or Kubo's early teen years with Kasai.